TANYA PLIBERSEK MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR EDUCATION
SHADOW MINISTER FOR WOMEN
MEMBER FOR SYDNEY
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS FIRST EDITION WITH PETER STEFANOVIC
THURSDAY, 21 OCTOBER 2021
SUBJECTS: Christian Porter; National anti-corruption commission.
PETER STEFANOVIC, HOST: Tanya Plibersek, good morning to you. Thanks for your time as always. Let's keep that conversation going, just to recap, Speaker Tony Smith agreed there was a prima facie case to examine where the Christian Porter breached those disclosure rules, the Coalition voted down a referral, your reaction to that?
TANYA PLIBERSEK, SHADOW MINISTER FOR EDUCATION, SHADOW MINISTER FOR WOMEN: Well, Anthony's right. It is absolutely astounding, it's historic. The Speaker has recommended that this matter be referred to the Privileges Committee. The Speaker is a member of the Liberal Party. Although he's done a very good job of being independent as a Speaker. For the government to vote against his recommendation to protect one of their own is an extraordinary moment in our democracy, and it shows that Scott Morrison is prepared to use his power when it matters to him to protect his mates. He's not prepared to use his power to do his best for the Australian people - but when his mates need him for a cover-up, he's there. I just think it is a real insight into what matters to this Prime Minister and it's a real insight into why we don't yet have a Corruption Commission at a federal level.
STEFANOVIC: Okay, well on that point would Labor's version of a federal ICAC be retrospective? So would you go after Christian Porter if elected?
PLIBERSEK: Well, we would - when elected - take the advice of experts on the finer details of the design of our Anti-Corruption Commission, but I think this use of the word retrospective is a little bit tricky because - let's leave Christian Porter out of it for a moment - if someone does something corrupt in the past, the fact that the Anti-Corruption Commission hasn't yet been established, doesn't mean that thing isn't already corrupt or illegal. When we're talking about retrospectivity being wrong, we're saying - if the law changes, you can't go back to before something was against the law and say, 'before it was against the law, we're still going to prosecute you for what you did before this was against the law'. If something is wrong now, if it's against the law now, if it's corrupt, now - the fact that we don't have an Anti-Corruption Commission, doesn't mean it's not wrong or corrupt, or against the law. It just means that there's no chance of catching the person - and the problem with taking this approach from the government saying nothing that happens before, the Corruption Commission was established can be looked at is every day of delay, is another day of potential cover-up of wrongdoing,
STEFANOVIC: But if you make it retrospective, then you can go back, can't you?
PLIBERSEK: Yeah, and I think there's a very strong case serious and systemic corruption in the past - things that were already against the law, things that were already corrupt behaviour - being able to be examined. Now, you need to take a bit of a common sense approach to that. You can't go back to, you know, the days of federation and and be looking at issues then, but if you've got serious and systemic corruption, our view is the Anti-Corruption Commission should be able to look at that.
STEFANOVIC: Okay, so I'm just a bit confused. So you would like to make your version of a federal ICAC retrospective?
PLIBERSEK: Like I've said, the finer details that the design of it will be established after we are elected, but the principle that you can look at things in the past that were already against the law, that were already corrupt behaviour, should be a design principle of any Anti-Corruption Commission because otherwise anything that's happening right now, it's a free-for-all, you know you'll never get caught if you do something wrong now.
STEFANOVIC: Christian Porter says he was operating within the rules, though?
PLIBERSEK: I think that's up to the Privileges Committee to determine. The rule that I understand that we all abide by is if we get a donation above $300, we declare who it's from, and when it comes to political donations Labor has said the disclosure threshold for contributions to political campaigns should be $1,000. The Liberals took that back up to $14,500 as a disclosure threshold. We think it should be a $1,000, and it should be more like real time disclosure. So whether it's a personal gift with that $300 threshold, whether it's a political donation of $14,500 - either way, he should be disclosing it and the fact that he's pretending that he doesn't know who the donors are doesn't excuse him from disclosing it. Otherwise if this is the precedent, anyone can get any sort of donation from anywhere, just by saying they don't know who it's from. How would that work?
STEFANOVIC: Like GoFundMe pages. And just on that, Peter Dutton identified Sarah Hanson-Young, is there a parallel that can be drawn there?
PLIBERSEK: Well, there's no parallel because - I was listening to Sarah Hanson-Young on the radio this morning - she was pointing out that most of the donations were very small, five dollars, twenty bucks, and she said on the radio this morning that any donation above that $300 threshold for personal gifts was disclosed with a name attached to it. So, I'm not sure that the government really believes that this is a parallel or whether they're just trying to distract from the fact that they're trying to protect someone who got a million dollars in anonymous donations from having to disclose who those donations are from.
STEFANOVIC: Okay, Tanya Plibersek, we are out of time, unfortunately. I wanted to ask you about climate change too, but we'll have to leave it there. We'll talk to you again soon, though. Thanks for your time.
ENDS
